


Thursday

by KH Ivywater (khi)



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Adams
Genre: Culture Shock, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-28
Updated: 2009-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khi/pseuds/KH%20Ivywater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Begins during the end of chapter 31 when they're on Magrathea. Arthur informs everyone he didn't ask to be there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thursday

**Author's Note:**

> This story was begun on or before March 15, 2004 and finally completed on February 28, 2009. Questions and comments and feedback are most welcome, and please let me know if you rec.
> 
> Do not reproduce this story without my permission.

It had to be Thursday again.

There were two mice on glass transports swinging through the air towards his head. They had just finished telling him in conversational tones that they wanted his brain removed, treated, and diced for the express purpose of finding the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

His brain was wondering if he should lodge a formal complaint somewhere. His stomach was busy doing a hyperactive's impression of tranquility. Sadly, his mouth decided to join the rebellion.

"Er…"

Embarrassed, his brain abandoned its ironic musings and rushed to his rescue.

"Er, hello? Does anyone understand I didn't ask for this?" He stumbled forward, trying to dodge the airborne rodents. Trillian grabbed him by the arm to drag him towards the door, but he refused to move. "I don't want to be here, you know?" he asked her. She let him go, and nodded understandingly. "I didn't ask to be taken off my planet. I didn't ask to be picked up by Vogons. Or to have a fish thrust into—"

Trillian wandered away. Her mice, however, swooped for Arthur again, and Frankie mouse tore a hole in the arm of his dressing gown. This enraged Arthur.

"I don't want to be here!" he screamed. He ran for the table, picked up a fruit from Decadancia VI that's better for throwing than it is for eating, and hurled it at one of the mice. "Why me?" he shouted. "_Why me_?" He continued throwing fruit at the rodents and their whiskey-glass transports.

By that time, Ford had turned around briefly to see what the fuss was about.

"Arthur!" he yelled.

Arthur rounded on him. "And you, Ford!" He chucked a fruit at Ford, because Ford was the one responsible for all the things he couldn't cope with.

"Ow!" said Ford, and threw up his hands, turning back to the door. Arthur raged at his back.

"Why am I here, Ford? Are all Betelguesians sadistic scientists like you? 'Hmm, let's see what happens when the _monkey_ is ripped from _everything_ he ever _knew_!'"

One of Zaphod's heads snorted. "Couldn't have been much."

Arthur ignored this by picturing both of Zaphod's heads being run over repeatedly with a lawn mower. The devastating lack of lawn mowers spurred him on. "Why?" he repeated. "Out of the grand number of lunatics you must have met on my horrible little planet, Ford, why me? Why not Peter? Why not Harry, or Jim, or Bob? Why not Stace, for Christ's sake?" He ducked to avoid the swooping mice, and hurled the remaining fruit at them. "Hell, why not the _bartender_?"

Trillian's vague irritation at Arthur's outburst suddenly turned into vague interest.

Zaphod would have been interested, too, had he and Ford not just yanked the door open to reveal a small pack of ugly men heavily armed with even uglier medical tools.

Ford backed away and shot Arthur the cheerful, insane smile only used by unflappable women in complaint departments.

"Now probably isn't the best time to have this conversation," he said.

Arthur didn't agree. He was about to die and he needed something to tell his great granny when she asked what took him so long and why he never came to visit.

"Ford," he began to whine, but fortunately every alarm on the planet chose that moment to whine even louder.

\---

Amusingly, thanks to Marvin's awful outlook on Life, they were still breathing a few hours later.

While the Heart of Gold sped away from the Horsehead Nebula in no particular direction at all, Zaphod was getting drunk for no particular reason. In a corner of the bridge, Ford and Trillian were having a particularly quiet conversation regarding a particular subject—who wandered away to his cabin after he realized that no one was going to talk to him.

Ford glanced up to watch him disappear, his sentence trailing off into silence. Trillian then fixed Ford with a very pointed look, which Ford pointedly ignored.

"Oh, good. Monkeyman left." Zaphod's second head was doing the talking while the other did the drinking.

Ford bristled a bit. "His name is Arthur," he said, and sunk lower into his seat when this made both of Zaphod's heads grin.

The drunk one regarded him in a way that made Ford wary. "Ford, baby, come have a drink with your old cousin Zay—" Hiccup. "—phod." He raised his glass to Ford invitingly.

But Ford frowned, because alcohol didn't seem like the answer—and if alcohol wasn't the answer, then he must have been asking the wrong question.

Sensing his reluctance, Zaphod's other head smiled a smile that had far too many teeth. "Come on, Ford. We'll have a nice drink together and you can explain the whole monkey thing."

Ford frowned again, and Trillian hissed something admonishing to Zaphod. When Zaphod responded angrily, Trillian's hiss got louder, until at last a full-blown argument erupted.

But Ford wasn't listening. He was slipping off to find Arthur.

\---

Across the ship, Arthur carried a glass of perfectly normal water into his room with grim determination. He was, as they say, a man on a mission.

A plant on his windowsill that he had taken a distinct liking to had been wilting over the past few hours. His mission, as it were, was to save it.

He tilted the glass, splashing water over the orange blossoms for the second time that day.

The unimpressed plant promptly withered and died.

Arthur gaped. Arthur goggled. Then the door to his quarters sighed with pleasure, which Arthur thought was a thoroughly inappropriate response to the situation.

Perplexed, he peered at the plant carefully. He prodded the dead leaves.

"That's a Trilexian Firebud," a voice said suddenly. "It's allergic to water."

Arthur turned to look at Ford, who had apparently just come through the door. "Ah," he said eloquently. "It would be, wouldn't it?" He set the glass down and shoved his hands into the pockets of his bathrobe. A plant that was allergic to water—huh. He tried not to overreact.

"Ford," he said presently, "what the hell were you _thinking_?"

Ford seemed to seriously consider the question, which made Arthur vaguely nervous. He held Ford's unblinking stare for a moment, and then watched as Ford's eyes flickered over the other things in the room—the Trilexian Firebud on the windowsill, the copy of the _Guide_ on the bed, and at least twenty other odd and disparate objects.

They all had one thing in common. Two things, really.

First, they were achingly familiar to Ford.

Second, they didn't look like they belonged anywhere near the same galaxy as Arthur Dent.

By the time Ford's eyes found Arthur's again, they were tired and sad.

"I guess I wasn't, was I?" he said finally.

There was a brief silence as that sunk in. Then Arthur's gaze dropped to the floor.

"Oh," he said quietly. "Oh." He waited for Ford to say something else, something slightly less awful, but he didn't. So Arthur edged past him and out of the room, leaving Ford standing there with his words hanging in the air.

Behind him, the door sighed happily.

"Oh, shut it," snapped Ford.

\---

He cornered Arthur a few minutes later near the Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer.

"That came out all wrong," he began, but Arthur would have none of it.

"Sure it did," he spat. "Sure it did." He took a moment to glare at Ford, and then began banging on the machine in front of them again. "Tea!" he shouted. "Tea! I need _tea_!"

Ford ignored the outburst, and put a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "We've got to talk," he said urgently.

Arthur pulled away roughly, rounding on him. "Stop that!" he shouted. "You aren't ever allowed to start a conversation with that again! Not ever! Last time you started a conversation with that, the bloody Earth was demolished!"

Ford frowned. "No, the last time I started a conversation with that, I saved your life. Which is what I need to talk to you about."

But Arthur had stopped listening. He was too busy describing the concept of English tea to the bewildered Nutri-Matic.

Ford pulled at Arthur's shoulder again, but Arthur kept going on. Finally, Ford had to shout in his ear.

The words he chose made Arthur freeze.

Silence descended and decided to stay awhile.

When it left, Arthur was sputtering. "Wh-what was that?"

"I said, 'I like you,'" Ford clarified patiently.

Arthur stared at him for a long moment. Then he did something unexpected: he smiled.

"Well, that's better, then," he said cheerfully, thumping Ford on the back. "All's forgiven."

Ford was fairly certain that he wasn't understood. He tried again. "No, Arthur. I mean I _like_ you."

Arthur's smile wavered. "Er—yes." He paused. "Er—what?"

Ford shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers and looked at the floor. "I _like_ you," he said. "I _had_ to save you." He could remember the momentary panic, the fear that he wouldn't find Arthur in time—

"Look, Arthur, you wanted to know why," he continued, shaking off the memories. "So I'm telling you. I _wanted_ to take you with me. You were the only one I wanted to take with me. I wanted to show you the Marvels of the Universe for less than thirty Altarian dollars a day. I _like_ you." He stopped, and stared at Arthur, waiting for a response even though he was pretty sure he wouldn't like it.

Which is why the mumble of, "Okay," caught him a little off guard.

"Okay?" he asked.

And Arthur nodded, repeating it louder. "Okay."

"Okay…" But Ford wasn't too sure. "Wait, what do you mean by that?"

"I mean," said Arthur, fidgeting impatiently, "that—ah—if I had to choose something familiar to have with me—ah—it would probably be you."

"Not the tea?" Ford asked incredulously.

"Not the tea," Arthur agreed. "Though tea would be nice." He looked at the Nutri-Matic forlornly, and then back at Ford. "But you're rather better than tea, I think," he confessed, brightening.

Ford gaped. Ford goggled.

But then Arthur kissed him, and he sighed with pleasure, which Arthur thought was a thoroughly appropriate response to the situation.

But that's a decidedly different story.

\---

**The End**


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